[Plato] Cicero, De universitate sive de origine mundi libellus, Cologne, 1520, thin stiff pasteboards with hand-drawn design

4to (195 x 140mm). Roman, black letter, and Greek types, 28 lines. collation: A–B⁴: 8 leaves. Decorative initial.

binding: Thin stiff pasteboards, perhaps seventeenth-century, with hand-drawn design reminiscent of Augsburg printed paper bindings of the 1520s, with painted design of a band of red flowers on curling tendrils around sides, an inner design involving a vase containing flowers at top and bottom and an oval at centre containing what appears to be the lion of St Mark holding a book painted in black and silver, flat narrow spine, Dutch endpapers with pattern leaves inhabited by birds, foxes, squirrels and a winged human figure emerging from a flower bud, plain edges. (Edges slightly rubbed.)

provenance: Inscription “Plus que moins” on title-page in an unidentified hand — Arthur Lauria, Paris — Maurice Burrus (1882-1959), his acquisition label dated September 1937 — Thierry de Maigret & Emmanuel de Broglie, Livres & manuscrits, Paris, 27 November 2013, lot 35 — Librairie Camile Sourget, Catalogue: 50 livres et manuscrits du XVe au XXe siècle (Paris, 2014), item 4. acquisition: Purchased in 2014 from Librairie Camille Sourget, Paris. references: not in the standard literature